What’s the Best Ebook Cover Design App?
Figuring out which app or software to use for your ebook cover design can be a challenge. I’m happy to say that after much trial and error, my new cover is finished, and I’m feeling pretty darned good about it. It’s definitely giving fun, rural, romantic vibes, and I also added a tagline just for a little extra chaotic feeling. Boy, has it been a journey. Though far from an expert in ebook cover design, I’ve spent the past few weeks doing an impromptu crash course in several programs.
Canva
I love Canva. Even with the free version, there’s plenty you can do with it. It’s super easy to use, intuitive, and just all-around fun to play around with. The desktop app is much faster than using the web version, which is infuriatingly laggy for me. While it’s possible to put together a decent ebook cover using just the free version, to make it look even remotely professional, the pro version is probably a better investment. I had a free trial of the Pro version a while back, and if I weren’t under budget constraints, I’d get it, because it is so, so much better than the free version.
Things you can do with Canva Pro:
- Use more features.
- Have access to more graphics and photos.
- Upload your preferred font.
- Save your preferred colours.
GIMP
Because Free Canva didn’t have the font I wanted, I elected to give myself a crash course in using GIMP. Similar to Photoshop, it’s free photo editing software that you download to your desktop. If you’re like me and have never used Photoshop before, GIMP has a huge and sometimes frustrating learning curve. I did teach myself how to remove the background of an image, add text, etc, but there is so much more you can do if you have the time and are experienced with this sort of software. It does way more than Free Canva, but everything takes ten times as long. Things I Frequently use GIMP for:
- Re-scaling images.
- Cropping images.
- Saving images in different file formats.
- Using my preferred font.
Affinity by Canva
After fighting with GIMP over rotating and then editing my title font several times, I decided to try Affinity. While the interface is similar to GIMP and other photo editing software, it’s much more intuitive to use. While it also has a learning curve, it’s much simpler, and I was able to design my cover in half the time, and with more features. I’m still new to this, so the jury’s still out, but from what I’ve seen so far, it’s my top choice.
Irfanview
Though primarily a photo viewer, I’m adding this one because it’s easy and has a few good features. Make sure to download the plugins that go with it, as it’s much faster and can open WebP files and such after they’re installed. I mainly use this for quick, non-specific image resizing. You can also make panoramas, either vertical or horizontal, and add effects to images. Some of these are super useful, while others aren’t. You probably can’t design a full book cover with it, but for basic purposes, it’s user-friendly.
Photopea
While I haven’t tried this yet, other people recommend it.
Places to Get Free for Commercial Use Images
A word of caution before using free photo sites:
- The uploader may not be the real copyright owner and may have stolen the image.
- Licenses can change.
- While photographers can remove photos, they can’t remove the license if it’s already being used. That said, if a photographer issues a DMCA takedown notice, sites will often remove it first and ask questions later.
- Free photos don’t guarantee model releases have been used.
This doesn’t mean you can’t use free photos, but means proceed with caution if you do.
- Unsplash: Best for images of scenery.
- Pexels: Best for images of people.
- Pixabay: Okay, but it has been infiltrated with AI images.
- Freepik: Also has too many AI images.
